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Amid protests and a walkout by some Opposition parties, the Lok Sabha passed the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (Amendment) Bill, 2023, by a voice vote. The Bill replaces the ordinance on control of services in the national capital.
Replying to a debate on the Bill, Union Home Minister Amit Shah launched a scathing attack on the Opposition, saying it was not worried about democracy or the people, but only about saving its newly formed alliance.
He also asserted that despite any Opposition alliance, Prime Minister Narendra Modi would return with “complete majority” after the 2024 elections.
As the Bill was being passed, the AAP’s lone Lok Sabha member, Sushil Singh Rinku, went to the well of the House, tore some papers and threw them in the direction of Speaker Om Birla. He was later suspended for the rest of the session.
The Opposition parties, which have been protesting to press their demand for a statement by Modi on Manipur, were participating in House proceedings for the first time since the start of the session.
Accusing the Opposition of double standards, Shah said: “Since this session has begun, the House has passed nine Bills. They were all important Bills.
Is Art 370 in a category beyond Parliament’s power to amend asks SC (Page no. 3)
(GS Paper 2, Judiciary)
The Supreme Court asked petitioners challenging the amendment to Article 370 regarding the status of the erstwhile state of J&K whether their argument that changes made to the provision in 2019 is beyond the amending powers of Parliament amounts to creating a new category, apart from the Basic Structure, which too is immune to amendment.
Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud, presiding over a five-judge Constitution Bench, asked Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal who appeared for the petitioners.
Thursday was the second day of the hearing on a clutch of petitions against the move to end J&K’s special status.
The query came as Sibal told the Bench, also comprising Justices S K Kaul, Sanjiv Khanna, B R Gavai and Surya Kant, that after the Constituent Assembly for the erstwhile state of J&K ceased to exist in 1957, there was no constitutional process left to touch Article 370 and changes, if any, could only have been made through a political process.
Editorial
It happened in Gurgaon (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Gurugram district and city consist of at least four different and distinct localities. First, there is the “new” Gurugram of gated residential enclaves, shopping malls and commercial precincts that have been privately developed since the early 1980s by large real estate companies.
Second, there are older, government planned areas established by the Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA). Third, there are localities that are home to a variety of migrant labour that work in factories, homes, shops and fields in a rapidly transforming economic and social landscape.
Finally, there is the Gurugram of villages-in-the-city: Rural localities where traditional landowners have recently become enriched through land sales to private and government entities.
Irrespective of the multiple Gurugrams, what is clear is that over the last three decades or so, an area of petty farming, poor irrigation, large chunks of arid lands and medieval era land-holding patterns finds itself in a maelstrom of globally financed urbanisation.
It is now a spectacular landscape of constant mobility and transformation. White collar professionals move in and out of gated communities, satellite technologies convert medieval era mussavi (cloth) land maps into GIS ones, poor populations from different parts of India arrive for service sector jobs and there is extraordinary movement of goods and commodities across many landscapes of aspiration and desire.
You would think that in such a place — marked by newness, speed and mobility — there would be no place for violence that is mobilised through appeals to religious identity. After all, what is the religion of a shopping mall or new land markets?
Explained
How Jan Vishwas bill proposes to deal with substandard drugs (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
The Jan Vishwas Bill passed in the Rajya Sabha yesterday (August 2) will amend two provisions of the law governing manufacture, storage, and sale of medicines in India.
One of the amendments has led to a debate on whether manufacturers of substandard medicines would be let off easy – by paying a fine instead of imprisonment.
The Jan Vishwas bill was brought to the parliament with an aim to improve ease of doing business. It will amend 183 provisions across 42 laws to do away with imprisonment or fines for certain offences.
It was passed in the Lok Sabha last week.
The Jan Vishwas Bill will make two changes to the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940.
The first amendment, which is not contentious, will do away with imprisonment under section 30 (2) of the current law for companies repeatedly using government analysis or test reports for promoting their products.
At present, companies face up to two years imprisonment and a fine of not less than ten thousand rupees for a repeated violation. This will change to only a fine but not less than five lakh rupees as per the amendment proposed in the Jan Vishwas bill.
Economy
Govt tables data protection bill, exemptions for centre unchanged (Page no. 19)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Wide-ranging government exemptions, provisions allowing the Centre a greater control over the enforcement process, and a measure for the government to bypass norms around seeking express consent from citizens – replete with some of its biggest criticisms, the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2023, was introduced in Parliament. In its new avatar, the proposed law has also accorded virtual censorship powers to the Centre.
The final version of the Bill, tabled in Lok Sabha by IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, has retained the contents of the original version of the legislation proposed last November, including those that were red flagged by privacy experts.
Exemptions for the central government and its agencies remain unchanged. The Central government will have the right to exempt “any instrumentality of the state” from adverse consequences citing national security, relations with foreign governments, and maintenance of public order among other things.
Opposition MPs, while protesting the introduction of the Bill in Parliament, raised concerns around government-exemption provisions. Congress MP Manish Tewari said that there was a distinction in the way the Bill applied to different entities.